WordPress often is targeted by hackers.

In April 2013 a worldwide brute-force attack began hitting WordPress installations across virtually every WP host server in existence around the world.

These attacks were caused by botnets (computer networks infected with malware and programmed to attack other vulnerable sites).

How To Protect Your WordPress Site From A Brute-Force Attack

What Is A Brute-Force Attack?

A brute-force attack is a technique used to break an encryption or authentication system by trying all possibilities.

(Source: Chinese University Of Hong Kong)

There are many methods hackers use to try and break into a WordPress site. One of these is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. To attempt this, hackers use software tools and scripts that can work through hundreds of login possibilities in minutes.

If you’re using weak login details, your website could be easily hacked by repeated attempts to guess your site’s login details.

This is called a “brute force” login attack.

Botnet – What Is This?

A botnet is a number of Internet-connected computers communicating with other similar machines in an effort to complete repetitive tasks and objectives. This can be as mundane as keeping control of an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel, or it could be used to send spam email or participate in distributed denial-of-service attacks. The word botnet is a combination of the words robot and network.

(Source: Wikipedia.org)

A “Botnet” is a network of private computers that have been compromised and infected with malicious code, which are then controlled remotely as a group, typically without the unsuspecting computer owners’ knowledge or awareness.

Botnets are normally used used to blast mass spam emails.

The screenshot below was taken from a site that monitors online security showing the locations of the command centers of a botnet that has been actively compromising computer networks all around the globe since 2009 called “Zeus” …

(The Zeus botnet has been actively infecting computer networks all around the world since 2009. Screenshot source: SecureList.com)

The ongoing botnet attacks were highly distributed and well organized. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by a number of webhosting companies in the initial attack alone, when the web was flooded with millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress users admin areas. The attacks then continued, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked every day.

Coverage of the April 2013 mass brute-force attack was reported by all the major webhosting companies, as well as the leading technology publications, such as TechNews Daily, Forbes, BBC News, PC Magazine, Tech Crunch, and even on the official US Department of Homeland Security website …

(WordPress is often the target of malicious attacks by hackers)

Does This Mean We Should Stop Using WordPress?

No. In fact, there are lots of good reasons why you should continue using WordPress if you are concerned at all about the security of your website.

We explain why WordPress is a secure web platform in this article: Are Open Source Platforms Like WordPress Secure?

It’s important to note that, in the case of April 2013 brute force attack described above, no specific WordPress vulnerability was being exploited (the same script was also attacking sites built using other web applications like Joomla).

Mike Little, one of the co-founders of WordPress, made the following comment about the botnet attacks:

It is a “simple” script that attempts to login using the admin login and a generated password. So if your password is too short or based on dictionary words it will be guessed and then the script can login legitimately and do whatever it wants including installing scripts (as plugins) or editing files. The attack tries to guess your password, if it succeeds, the most secure site in the world is wide open because they have your password.

(MikeLittle.org)

Protecting Your WordPress Website From Being Brute Force Attacked – 10 Security Checks

Every web site with a vulnerability has some degree of value to hackers. Every website has some value to hackers. Large, medium and small business sites, personal blogs, government websites … even web sites owned by online security and anti-hacking experts can and have been targeted.

If someone can access and gain stealth control of your site, your web site can then be employed as a “bot” in a planned cyberattack against larger and more valued web sites.

Additional undesirable consequences of having your website hacked and your site security compromised include being blacklisted by search engines, having spammy links promoting things like casinos, discounted fashion, etc. inserted in your content and page title and descriptions, redirecting visitors to phishing sites and other websites, data exfiltration (stealing customer details or Personal Identifiable Information from your web applications), and many other nasty things.

The truth is that hackers are searching for security weaknesses and trying to break into your website while you are reading this page right now. Whether they can get into your site successfully or not, depends on how hard you have made things for hackers to continue persisting until they either discover a way to get in, or give up and decide to look for a more vulnerable target.

How Much Information About Your WordPress Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?

Does your website run on WordPress? If so visit a site like Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security check …

(Hackertarget – WordPress Security Check Source: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)

You will see that the test will yield various results and details about your website …

(WP security check results. Product image: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using the tool shown above that if you are able to access all of this information about your WordPress website, hackers can too.

(Screenshot image: BlogDefender.com)

Being able to see what version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories can all be potentially useful information to hackers, as this informs them about potential holes or weaknesses, especially where site owners haven’t updated their sites.

If your site or blog runs on WordPress and you are not preventive steps to bolster the security of your site, we can practically guarantee that, at some point in time, your site will be hacked, or at least targeted by bots, because these brute force attacks are systematically targeting WordPress installations worldwide!

When a website is broken into, webmasters can discover much to their dismay that they have been “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been vandalized or even entirely wiped out. Typically, compromised sites will become infected with malicious software or viruses without the owner even being aware that a security breach has taken place.

To help avoid the heartache and frustration that comes with having your website being hacked into, below are 10 essential and effective security measures that will help to protect your WordPress site from being attacked by brute-force botnet hacking attempts.

Note: A few of the steps below require some technical understanding of how to modify core WordPress and server files. If you lack these technical skills, or don’t want to mess around with code on your site, then ask your web host or search for a WordPress service provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

***

Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Hosting Service Provider

Contact your hosting provider and ask them exactly what security measures have been put into place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what is done to make sure that your files and data get regularly backed up.

Make sure that your hosting service provider backs up your server files and that, if disaster strikes, you can quickly and easily get back your site.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Regular WordPress Backups And Keep Your Site Regularly Up-To-Date

You should never rely just on your host for site backups. Instead, learn how to maintain and manage your WordPress site or get this done for you and develop a habit of religiously performing a full WordPress site maintenance routine on a regular basis (e.g. daily, weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

A full WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

• All unnecessary files and data are deleted,
• All WP data and files are free of errors, optimized and backed up,
• All WordPress plugins, themes and software components are up-to-date,
• etc …

A complete WordPress maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WP installation completely backed up and up-to-date is vitally important for WordPress security. Image source: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important maintaining your WP web site completely backed up and up-to-date is. WP maintenance is not hard to do or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website. If you do not want to learn how to do WP maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure this gets done. Backing up your site is the next most important thing you should do after making sure that you still have a pulse!

If you don’t want to back up your data manually, there are a number of plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Backup, Copy & Keep Your WP Sites Protected With Backup Creator Plugin For WP

Security Measure #3 – Make Sure That Your Username Is Not “Admin”

The mass brute-force attack on WordPress is mostly an attempt to compromise website administrator panels and gain access to the site by exploiting installations with “admin” as the user name.

For security purposes, avoid installing sites with the username admin. This is the first thing hackers will test. If your site’s username is “admin”, you should change this immediately.

We have created a detailed step-by-step tutorial created especially for admin users that shows you how to change your login username here: Changing Your WP User Name From Admin To Another User Name

Security Measure #4 – Avoid Weak Passwords

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software persistently hits a username and password field with different character strings trying to guess the right login combination that will unlock your website.

Unless you put some measure in place to stop the brute-force attack from happening (see further below for a couple of simple and effective ways to do this), the “bot” will just persist in attacking your site until it eventually works out the combination.

Weak passwords, therefore, become really easy targets for bot attacks. Make sure that you change your password to a string that is at least 8 characters long, and that includes upper and lowercase letters, combined with “special” characters (e.g. ^, $, @, etc).

If you have trouble coming up with strong passwords or are reluctant to set up different passwords for all your online logins, then use a password management software tool like Roboform …

(You can use a password management software tool like Roboform to create strong login passwords)

For a detailed tutorial for WordPress users on how to change your password, go here: What To Do If You Need To Reset A Password In WordPress

Security Measure #5 – Prevent Access To The wp-config.php File

The wp-config.php file allows WordPress to communicate with the database to store and retrieve data and is used to define advanced options for WordPress.

(wp-config.php file)

If hackers break into your WordPress site, they will look for the wp-config.php file, because this file contains important information about your site’s database, security keys, etc. Getting access to this information would allow someone to change anything in your database, create a user account, upload files and take control of your site.

To protect your WordPress site from being attacked and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, prevent people getting to your wp-config.php file. This requires knowing how to edit database information, move files around in your server and changing access permissions.

Security Measure #6 – Delete Or Rename Unnecessary Installation Files

Rename or delete the install.php, upgrade.php and readme.html files from your server.

These files are completely unnecessary after installation and can be deleted. If you don’t want to delete these files, just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Update Your WordPress CMS, Themes And Plugins To Their Latest Version

Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities in outdated versions of WordPress that can be exploited, including outdated versions of themes and plugins.

Make sure to always keep all of your files, themes, plugins, etc. up-to-date.

Security Measure #8 – Disable The Theme Editor

WordPress installations come with a built-in editor that allows administrators to edit theme and plugin files inside the dashboard.

You can access the WordPress Theme Editor by selecting Appearance > Editor from the dashboard menu …

(Accessing the WordPress theme editor via the WP main menu)

The WordPress theme editor lets anyone accessing your blog view and modify your WordPress theme files, and cause havoc on your site.

If you want to prevent people from being able to access the WordPress Theme editor, you will need to disable it. This can be done by editing your wp-config.php file.

Security Measure #9 – Remove Access To Your WordPress Uploads Folder

The WordPress “uploads” directory stores all the media files that get uploaded to your blog.

By default, this folder is visible to all users online. All someone has to do to view the contents in the “uploads” folder is navigate to your directory using their web browser …

(WordPress has an uploads folder where your media files are stored)

If any files stored in his folder have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers or malicious users, someone could upload unauthorized file types or compromise the security of your site.

Protecting your directories will prevent unauthorized people from viewing your ‘uploads’ folder and other important directories. This can be done using plugins, setting file permissions, uploading a blank index.php file (this is literally a blank file called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to consult a professional if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Security Plugins

Some great security plugins for WordPress are available that specifically address common security issues WordPress website owners face, such as preventing hackers from gaining access to vital information about your site, protecting your files from botnets, preventing injections of code into files, etc.

Most WordPress plugins address some but not all areas of WordPress security. One security plugin that does a comprehensive job of scanning, fixing and preventing potential issues that could lead to hackers accessing your files and causing irreparable damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – complete security software solution for WordPress)

SecureScanPro is easy to install and easy to use, and does a great job of addressing most of the security issues that WordPress users need to address.

Another plugin you may want to consider using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender Security Product Suite

(Blog Defender)

Blog Defender is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, plugins and tools, plus WordPress security documentation in PDF and DOC formats.

BlogDefender scans you web site for security weaknesses …

And then shows you how to quickly fix these …

If you don’t want to purchase a premium security plugin like SecureScanPro or BlogDefender, then use various free plugins, such as Limit Login Attempts …

WordPress is a very secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like updating your WordPress installation, WordPress plugins and themes, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can have disastrous consequences.

No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of securing your web sites.

As one last reminder of the importance of website security, below is the advice given by a web security expert to all WordPress users following the worldwide brute-force attacks by botnets on WordPress in 2013 …

Owners of websites based on WordPress CMS must improve at least basic security settings and implement best practices such as the use of robust passwords and the accurate management of “admin” accounts.

Pierluigi Paganini, Chief Information Security Officer, Security Affairs

***

As you can see, website security is of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, the above information will help prevent brute force attacks on your WordPress site. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please consult a WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

Also, please remember to subscribe to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications via email whenever we publish new information on WordPress security and tutorials about new security plugins and solutions.

***

***